LDP – Ch 8

Dad didn’t say a word and just sat there in deep thought on the side…
But at this time, Murong Daiyu floated through from the outside. I secretly nodded to her and she gave me a smile. This was the first time she ever smiled at me; she silently stood in the corner after smiling. Nobody could see her besides me.

Xiaohui and Xia Chaoran sat down for more than 10 minutes and left afterwards. After they left, Dad asked: “What do you want to eat? I’ll buy it for you!”

“Please just order some porridge from the alley store.”

“You wait here; I’ll go to the hospital cafeteria to see if they have it”. After he finished talking, Dad opened the door and went out, leaving me and Miss Daiyu inside the room alone.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“My whole body hurts” I replied briefly

“Come, drink this.” While speaking, Miss Daiyu took out a bottle which was filled with a dark brown liquid.
I didn’t hesitate a bit as I took the bottle and immediately drank it. It bitter to the point where I had to pinch my nose to continue drinking the liquid.

While looking at me drink the liquid, Miss Daiyu said: “Your injury this time is too serious, it will probably cause sequelae in the future. This medicine was concocted by your master, drink it once every day. After 3 days you’ll be fully recovered, it will not leave any hidden injuries.

“I’ll be able to move in 3 days? Miss, both of my legs are fractured, how could it be possible heal that quickly? Let alone saying that I can move freely within 3 days!”

Murong Daiyu just gently replied: “3 days is considered slow; alright put that aside for now, how were you injured this time?”

I told her everything in full detail, as well as my suspicions about Xia Chaoran’s involvement as the mastermind behind it all. I also asked Miss Daiyu to tell Xiaohui secretly that Xia Chaoran is someone that could not be trusted.

Miss Daiyu’s words were proven to be true. As 3 days later I was almost fully recovered! I could even move my body just like before. All the doctors even called it a miracle and praised me for my amazing self-recovery abilities They also took many blood samples from me for experimental and research usages.

I spent 4 more days in the hospital before leaving. During the past few days, Dad had sold the house and our family packed all of our belongings, moving away from Qing Tian city to Qi Ling city.

Mom was complaining along the way about our new city, she blamed Dad and complained why Dad had to fight with uncle Zhao, resulting in losing his job. Dad didn’t tell her the truth, to which I thought was his way of protecting his wife and son. Dad could only choose to make up a lie and took us far away from Qing Tian city to Qi Ling city.

****

5 months have passed by in a flash since we first arrived here.

Our family rented a house in a nice neighborhood. Dad got a new job, although his salary was not as good as before. I myself chose to completely drop out of school and became a waiter in a nearby restaurant to help support the family.

My job started from 7 in the morning til 9 at night, with a monthly salary of 1000 RMB and no holidays.
As a matter of course, I still got up at 3 in the morning and continued to exercise. My constitution and physical strength had undergone tremendous changes; as a previously thin and weak boy from 6 months ago, I had in comparison become much stronger now. I could carry 100 jins (50kg) of lead bars every day, 15kg for each leg and 10kg for each arm respectively. Due the morning exercises, I carried these lead bars and ran for 4 km; I even carried it when I was working all day.

All of those exercises were then added onto a series of special training given by Miss Daiyu.
Even Miss Daiyu had started to formally teach me the Daoist arts since 3 months ago.

After the jogging session finished, it was already around 4 am. I went home, opened my window while facing east; I lit 3 incenses, inserted it in a bowl and knelt on the mat; I then burned 3 papers of Yang Fu, kowtowed 3 times, then sat. After that, I closed my eyes, straightened my upper body and raise my tongue up toward the palate of my mouth; my two palms were placed on my Dantian as I formed a circle like gesture. I regulated my breathing while posed in these 3 stances. This was to strengthen my Yang qi and at the same time accumulate that so called “legendary internal strength”.

The breathing practice lasted for an hour, and after 5 am, it was time for the sparring session with Miss Daiyu. However, it seemed like all of my efforts were still not good enough, although my skills have been progressing significantly. And though it couldn’t be compared with the past; I still couldn’t find a way to beat Miss Daiyu, and got severely beaten every day.

After an hour of being a human sandbag, 6 am was the drawing session, to practice drawing Daoist symbols, charms, or for practicing incantations.

The magical charms and symbols couldn’t be casually drawn at anytime. The quantity and force power of the divine and spirit qi was different for each time period. Drawing Daoist magical charms in itself must be conducted around 5-7 am. Which was when the concentration of the divine and spirit qi were at its highest.
Only after I practiced drawing the symbols and charms from 6 to 6:30 am did I go to work.

But this morning after the series of exercises had ended, Miss Daiyu suddenly said: “Xiaolong, I must leave for some time; it might be a month or two, 6 months, or maybe even longer. You however must still practice like this even when I’m not here. I recently found these ginsengs, you can use them if you are injured, it can also be used to increase the Yang qi in your body. Moreover, you could also try to exorcise and subdue some ghosts or evil spirits. Actually you can make money from the rich by exorcising. Your master once got paid 2 million RMB for only exorcising an evil spirit. However you must remember; you have learned the Daoist teachings and arts to help many people, not to make money. You cannot just stand by and do nothing just because the people who need your help are poor. Do you understand?”

“I understand Miss.” I quickly replied while counting the ginseng she gave to me and continued: “I have learned how to use the Shadowbane sword, added with my physical abilities and the Daoist arts that I have learned, I will not easily run into danger.” What the… there are only 13 ginsengs… It seems like I must only use these ginsengs when I am in desperate need.

Miss Daiyu just left.

I had just arrived at the restaurant, but immediately carried out my waiting job diligently. At lunch time, many people came to eat; however my vision often fell on a certain young woman’s friend. Her age was around 23-24 years old and had her worker’s tag hanging on her chest, she was one of the museum staff from a museum nearby, and often came to eat some snacks. I watched her, not because she looked beautiful, but because there was a sign of Yin Qi in her glabella. The blackened glabella was quite vivid, which meant that it was quite serious, and if she didn’t do anything about it then she would soon became ill and may even be prone to illnesses. Causing her life to be in danger.

As the patriarch of the Niu School now, I of course had the duty to exorcise all ghosts and evil spirits! Therefore when I passed near the woman, I whispered: “Miss Xu, have you frequently felt indescribable cold sensations recently? And have also been seeing some strange things? For example… ghosts?” Since I had paid attention to her for several days with the addition of the information on her worker’s tags, I knew that her name was Xu Xiaoling.

“How did you know?” she asked in a surprised tone.

I smiled and replied: “It’s very simple, when a person’s Yang energy is being weakened to a certain extent, that person can somehow see ghosts. Your condition right now is exactly such, being overly casted with Yin energy, while your Yang energy is very weak. If you want to maintain your life, come here at 9 pm and wait after I get off from work, I’ll help you solve the problem.” After saying those words, I didn’t wait for her to reply, but continued to carry my tray. Whether she believed my words or not was her choice to make.

****

Originally, I didn’t want to expose my identity and intended to secretly investigate it. However since I was busy working, it left me no choice to do so since I really didn’t have the time to investigate Xu Xiaoling’s workplace or her home address. But seeing her situation was getting more and more serious and that she perhaps couldn’t last for any more than several days, it made me expose my real identity.

At 9 pm, I waved to the boss and said farewell as I opened the door and went outside. I leaned over the entrance and waited for Xu Xiaolong and her colleagues. However nobody came into sight after I waited for a while. So I took the Moon Charm paper from my trouser’s pocket and concentrated my Yang Qi into my fingertips; the Moon Charm instantly burned! This was the result of practicing for several months. I can use my inner Yang Qi to ignite Daoist charm papers or to cast an incantation. This was also a basic foundation ability that must be mastered by every orthodox Daoist successor.
The Moon Charm’s function was to burn off or hide the Yang Qi from a human’s body, and enables that certain person to see “ghosts”. I didn’t bring cattle tears this time; therefore I could only use the ‘Opening Eyes’ method, otherwise I would be unable to see the ghost. The Moon Charm itself actually had many functions, the most famous one was to make a zombie unable to feel your existence. A zombie has a unique characteristic that makes it unable to see anything, but it could sense the Yang energy from a human’s body. And the Moon Charm could hide the Yang energy within the human’s body. However, whether it was actually real or not, I really didn’t know since I never experienced it.

There were three light bulbs on my body now, one on my head, and the other 2 were on each of my shoulders. With these three light bulbs, ghosts wouldn’t dare to approach easily, and the Yang fire that was emitted out from these light bulbs had a deterrent effect against the ghosts. Therefore, I could not move rashly when walking outside at night, because the wind could blow out the light bulbs on my shoulders. And once a light was off, the amount of Yang Qi would also be reduced. So if you encountered a resentful ghost in that condition, you would be miserable and would have found yourself in a disastrous situation.

I used the burning Moon Charm on my two shoulders once and then threw the charm on the ground and stomped the fire out. I clearly felt the yang energy within my body quickly depleting, and my vision became slightly blurred and fuzzy. After that, I immediately saw five or six figures appearing from the empty streets, some of the figure were walking, some were floating, their complexion were heavy and dark, while some looked green. There was also a man that jumped out of the residential building on the opposite side of the road. The strange thing was that he didn’t die after he jumped down, he just casually patted his butt, stood up and then floated to the next roof and repeated the action over and over again. I just remembered two days ago, there was a man who had committed suicide in this vicinity.

Xua Xiaolong and a man walked toward me as the man said something to her while walking: “Xiaoling, do you really believe that boy? In my opinion he must be a swindler.”

“I believe him Cheng Dong, you just go home, I don’t need your company!” Xu Xiaoling replied to Cheng Dong in a very cold and desolate manner.

As they came out and approached, Cheng Dong looking at me with eyes of contempt and disdain, he talked with a threatening tone: “You, little boy, if you don’t want to spend your lovely time in jail, just quickly roll and disappear before me. Hey Xiaoling, this world doesn’t have any so called ghosts or such. It’s just that you didn’t have enough rest recently and it made you hallucinate and see illusions. This boy is just a waiter in a restaurant, his true intention is to deceive and swindle you.”
I stared at this Cheng Dong, sized him up and down and lightly asked: “Do you want to see some ghosts?”